8 to Infinity: Tips to a Successful Relationship

What is a Successful Relationship?

A successful relationship does not mean that you and your partner: are competing against any other couples; have to be the best couple - no fights and dramas, smooth-sailing; always sweet and happy; and/or have your world revolving around each other.

Be realistic. There will always be days that will challenge the strength of someone’s devotion, faith, trust, and the list goes on. But no matter what comes your way, you will always choose to endure, stay and comfort each other because you choose love above all.

Most of us think that we are giving “love” our all, but little that we know that we can always push ourselves to go for the extra mile to make things work in spite of the challenges that our relationships face.

Love is a work in progress. It is not something that you expect to grow without being nurtured. As much as people think that this is just a cliché, there are a lot of things that you have to keep in mind while you try to maintain a happy and successful relationship. - Anonymous

Here are some of the tips to a successful relationship:

Invest your time and effortWorking on something needs equal amount of time and effort to achieve a good result. In Physics, force and time define the momentum. Think about force as the “push and pull” of your relationship or the kind of effort that you put in, multiplied by the time that you wish to apply this force, this will give your relationship the momentum that it needs. Momentum, being your relationship’s direction. You push, you move forward. You pull, you move backward. Your choice.Well nerdy things aside, a relationship will not get anywhere without these.

Consistency is KeyMost people describe consistency as something that needs commitment. But for me, a commitment also requires consistency.To have confidence about something, you need something to make you feel the assurance that you are not wasting time, effort and energy to keep something steady.

The kind of commitment that you want depends upon how consistent you are in a relationship. A steady force in this case, a consistent effort, describes a stable motion id est, a stable relationship. Anything stable makes a good foundation. So yeah!

We vs CrisisChoosing to be in a relationship does not mean you are together because you think and act the same, finish each other’s sentences or read each other’s mind. In reality, we are all different people no matter how similar we think we are. As a result, there may be fights/ arguments/ disagreements, big or small, but no matter what happens it should always lead you to choosing to fix, understand and stay…Love over pride, simply because you do not need to keep scores on who made the most mistakes, or who is always right. We over I, simply because it is hard to fix things with one hand as it is always better with two.

Open Communication: Listen and ExpressTo be able to understand each other means that you have to listen and express. You listen without interrupting because it is one way of learning something deeper about the situation and most importantly, about your partner. You listen to understand not to seek weakness and keep score against your partner. It is when you listen that you extend the bridge of your soul towards something infinite as there are many things that you will face throughout your relationship. Also, this helps you learn to give way and overcome pride.When you listen, you also need to express. You have to make it a point that you express not to argue but to make yourself be heard clearly. Expressing yourself gives your partner the chance to know something about your thoughts and your feelings. This way, things work both ways.

You communicate not to argue but to understand and clarify things.

Accept and AppreciateWhen you learn something about your partner, there will always be things that you cannot change. Which may result to an added argument, or a fuel to what seems to be a burning bridge between you. But what can you do to succeed despite the obvious and inevitable differences between you? Only one thing. You accept things. You did not choose to be together to be a different person, but to be with someone who you can be yourself while you complement each other. Not to change, but to nurture what is already there.Aside from accepting things as they are, you also need to appreciate everything your partner does for you. You are together because of many reasons. One of these reasons is you have always seen the good things over the bad. Inevitably, at a later point of your relationship, you are going to be too much consumed by the shortcomings that we fail to see the good things. Never let that happen. Saying “thank you” and “I love you” is enough.

Sometimes, suggestions for improvements are taken as offensive. Instead of taking things negatively, you should also accept and appreciate your partner’s effort to put complementarity to your relationship. Not to change you, but take it as something that you can improve on. I bet, if you really can’t, your partner can still accept. 😊

Balance between emotions and logicWhen you control yourself, you become more understanding about the needs of your partner and more mature about your decisions. Controlling yourself means being able to balance things.Sometimes, young couples tend to cater more to their emotions rather than trying to analyze things. Being too emotional kills your ability to communicate effectively. When you get succumbed by your emotions, your logic becomes too clouded that it makes you act in an impulse. As you act in an impulse, you might say or do things that you will later regret. A little logic will keep you on the right track.

Too much of something is also bad as too much logic kills compassion. When you start to be highly logical, you sometimes forget to give ‘heart’ your decisions. That is why keeping the balance is the best thing ever!

Support each otherMaybe another “We over I”, but on a different note. Although you and your partner think and do some things as an individual (for yourself), you still need someone to support you in your decisions. Supporting each other strengthens your complementarity as it gives you a boost/motivation and an assurance that no matter what happens you will never feel alone. Asking for/giving your support to your partner does not promote dependence, but empowerment.

Chill, Trust and Give spaceToo much love (?) will kill you your relationship to a point that you become so possessive and obsessed that you become detached from reality. It may sometimes result to a slight paranoia that enables you to think of a possibility that your partner will cheat! Naaah! All you need to do is chill, trust and give space!Be a cool partner. Like what I always tell again and again, you are still considered and individual at some point in your life that you need to separate ways when you want to poop! You do not poop together on one toilet bowl, do you?

Face the fact that there will always be something that you and your partner have difference or have to do apart. You may have different things that you are passionate or interested about. Take that as something that will keep you interested about each other. All you need to do is to trust your partner. Respect individuality.Do not be too clingy and demanding. Giving space means there is more opportunity to learn something new about yourself and about your partner.

I may not be a super duper love expert as I am human, bound to make mistakes and limited to what I can fathom…but I hope that this is enough to help you maintain a successful relationship. I did not learn things on my own as I also have a partner whom I have learned these things with.

My husband and I

We do not have a perfect relationship, but as we mostly follow what I wrote (because I repeat, we are not perfect) I have seen a lot of improvement in those 11++ years of being together.

About The Author

Pao is a funny writer who casually blogs about her reflections, realizations and random encounters in life. Being someone who is recovering from health issues, she thought of writing these articles to help people who might have been experiencing similar problems, thoughts and issues. Might not actually help, but who knows? :)